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Character Pairings (Minami-ke)
This article describes the various crushes and romantic feelings prevailing between the many characters of Minami-ke. Rather unusually among shows and manga of its genre, it contains many implied or explicit romantic elements, but these do not dominate the story as they would in, for example, a drama. It is necessary to keep in mind that the only fully canon pairing is that between Kana and Fujioka (Sensei and Ninomiya-kun appear only in the anime, and are themselves fictional within the series). Canon Relationship Anticipated in Future The evidence for a future relationship (a future which may never arrive) between Kana and Fujioka is overwhelming, since they behave towards each other in every way typical of a couple who refuses to admit they actually are a couple. Such a relationship is pretty much assumed by every other character, except for Akira, who misunderstands the situation entirely.See Banchou, or Minami-ke Episode 11#Segment Two (Minami-ke Chapter 51) In addition, in the magic pen scene, where the pen always correctly points towards the object named, the pen points towards Fujioka when Kana askes for her "fantastic future husband candidate", though Kana fails to appreciate the significance of this. Further, the textual narrators in both the manga and anime imply that the pen is accurate.Minami-ke: Okaeri Episode 01#Segment Five (Minami-ke Chapter 33) Fujioka's confession to Kana is at the very beginning of both the anime and manga and they seem like a compatible couple. It would be surprising if they fail to attempt a relationship eventually. Fujioka's Crush on Kana Fujioka confesses his love to Kana twice.Minami-ke Episode 01#Segment Five ([Chapter 002)], and Minami-ke Episode 03#Segment Three (Minami-ke Chapter 011) However, both times, with some interference from Chiaki, she seems to interpret these as threats from the local Banchou and respond with violence or defensive postures. Despite this, she begins inviting him over to her house on a regular basis, and he becomes quite close with the Minami Family. Other characters in the show begin to treat the two of them as a a couple in some ways, though without ever being too explicit. After the second "rejection", Fujioka stops attempting direct confessions, and instead tries to think of other ways to get Kana to understand his feelings. He gives gifts to the entire family on Christmas andMinami-ke Episode 12#Segment One (Minami-ke Chapter 024), Minami-ke: Okaeri Episode 09#Segment Two or Minami-ke Chapter 71 hides evidence of his popularity with other girls on Valentine's Day,Minami-ke: Okawari Episode 07 (Minami-ke Chapter 027). The fact of his popularity can be inferred from this, but is also stated explicitly in Minami-ke Episode 01#Segment Five (Minami-ke Chapter 02) and repeatedly attempts to invite Kana on the equivalent of dates, though he is generally always shot down for irrelevant reasons. He lives for the slightest hints of interest from Kana and is often seen getting exciting over perfectly meaningless events.For instance, Minami-ke: Okaeri Episode 07#Segment Five (Minami-ke Chapter 115) Fujioka is madly in love with Kana and extremely tenacious, not having given up after what has been at least two years since his confession to (and first time speaking with) Kana.See Minami-ke Chronology Chiaki once even gives him a bit of a morale boost. Minami-ke: Okawari Episode 11#Segment Five (Minami-ke Chapter 064) Kana's Feelings Towards Fujioka Kana's true feelings towards Fujioka are far more difficult to determine. Outwardly, Kana seems completely unaware of Fujioka's feelings towards her and does not acknowledge any possible relationship between them. This is the tack taken by the series most of the time, and what is understood by the other characters, who consider the problem with Fujioka and Kana's relationship to be Kana's sheer denseness when it comes to Fujioka. The problem with this point of view is two-fold. One lies in the level of density that Kana must have for this to true, which stretches the bounds of reason. For instance, Kana's reason for rejecting Fujioka's first two confessions is based on her belief that he is a banchou, and that his confessions are in fact challenges to fights, an interpretation which requires an extremely implausible reading between the lines of his sentences. This is plainly preposterous, and Kana shows signs that she understands that the "Banchou" storyline is an elaborate game perpetuated by her and Hiroko,Minami-ke: Okawari Episode 02 (Minami-ke Chapter 065). Note that the anime episode is far more elaborate. something which should be apparent to any reality-accepting person. However, if Kana truly understands this, then the bottom falls out of her justification for dismissing Fujioka's confession. Further, Kana somehow ignores myriad hints and oblique comments from people ranging from Fujioka himself to Keiko. Since Kana is otherwise extremely adept at understanding the social situation and manipulating people, it seems doubtful that she could truly miss so many hints. The other half of the problem lies in Kana's behavior toward Fujioka. She supposedly thinks he is a dangerous Banchou, but rather quickly begins inviting him to her home on a regular basis, as well as to a wide variety of social events where he would seem out of place if he were only her friend. Further, on two out of three Valentine's Days (two out of two in the manga),Two of the Valentine's Days in the anime may, in fact, be the same day. See Minami-ke Chronology. she has ended up giving him chocolate, the second time for a reason that is quite implausible (Because she though he looked tired and thus needed chocolate, and she entirely forgot what day it was despite making a huge fuss over it earlier).Minami-ke: Okawari Episode 07 (Minami-ke Chapter 27) and Minami-ke: Betsubara#Segment Four (Minami-ke Chapter 122) A possible alternate position, then, is that Kana is for some reason refusing to let their relationship go beyond a certain point, or refusing to reveal some sort of feelings for Fujioka, in a highly nontraditional tsundere manner. In this interpretation, there are two situations where Kana lets the mask slip. The first occurs when Fujioka accidentally sees her naked in the onsen,Minami-ke: Okawari Episode 01#Segment One (Minami-ke Chapter 074) and Kana, instead of yelling at him or doing anything typical, instead retreats, acting melancholic and questioning what she should have done. The other is when Fujioka fails to participate in a game of tag at the pool that Kana instigates, due to shyness, and Kana gets angry, even kicking him for his noncooperation. Her facial expressions in this scene in the anime are uncharacteristic.Minami-ke: Okaeri Episode 05#Segment Five (Minami-ke Chapter 112) What Kana's true feelings are must await further development within the manga. One-sided Crushes Hosaka's Love for Haruka Fantasy]] Hosaka first sees Haruka as she's playing volleyball with great skill, and Hayami explains to him that she wants him to recruit her to girls' volleyball team, which she consistently refuses to join due to the time pressure of raising two sisters. This leads to a rapidly escalating chain of hilarity that extends all the way to the end of the series. Hosaka promises to succeed but, having fallen in love at first sight, plans instead to get her to be the manager of the boys' volleyball, of which he is a member, so that she can wipe his sweat. He then learns that she has two "kids" from Maki, who at this point in the series is grossly misinformed.Minami-ke Episode 04#Segment Four (Minami-ke Chapter 008) This kind of over-the-top behavior is typical for Hosaka, whose "love" for Haruka is a stereotype of crushes. He goes into elaborate fantasies whenever he sees her or she is mentioned; these fantasies often involve her two "daughters" and are a parody of dating sims. He has a disturbing habit of unbuttoning his shirt during these. The sum total of these causes Maki to consistently refer to him and the things he does as "Kimochi Warui". He constructs elaborate plans for the perfect first meeting with Haruka, which always fail, often because he refuses to tolerate minor deviations from perfection. In short, while Hosaka constantly professes his love for Haruka, it is likely he will never so much as ever speak to her. Riko's Crush on Fujioka reacts to seeing Fujioka]] Riko is introduced by having her blush while looking at Fujioka. This immediately establishes her most salient character aspect. However, she has a major problem: Fujioka only has eyes for Kana and their relationship is highly developed, with Fujioka visiting her house and even eating her cooking!As he does in Minami-ke Episode 03#Segment Four (Minami-ke Chapter 014) After brief despair, Riko decides the solution is to get close to Kana and, through her, to Fujioka. Ironically, she and Kana become fairly good friends. While Riko reaches the point where she goes on group outings with Fujioka, this never happens outside Kana's presence. Further, while Riko continues to envy Kana and plot to get closer to Fujioka, she never manages to do anything meaningful. It almost seems like she's content just being near him, except that she still tries. She doesn't see anything strange about being good friends with the girl who keeps Fujioka from noticing her. Makoto's Devotion to Haruka Makoto's first visit to Chiaki's house is also the first time he sees Haruka. To him, it is love at first sight, and he becomes enamored with her beauty and nurturing nature. Unfortunately for him, his devotion, his helpfulness towards Haruka, and the praise he wins from Haruka attract Chiaki's jealousy. Consequently, Chiaki near-absolutely bans him from visiting her house.Minami-ke: Okawari Episode 09#Segment Two (Minami-ke Chapter 062) With the help of Kana, however, he finds a way around this barrier: Become Mako-chan! He learns to cross-dress and begins doing so on a regular basis in order to visit Chiaki's house. By doing so, he gets plenty of time to spend around Haruka, with Chiaki being none the wiser. Unfortunately, there is an obvious heavy cost to doing this and it is doubtful he is making any progress with Haruka by deceiving her about who he is. Not that it was likely ever more than a pipedream to start with. Hitomi's crush on Natsuki Legend at Kana's school has it that Hitomi, the second Banchou, was the only one capable of defeating the notorious delinquent Natsuki. It is unclear if this is true, but it seems unlikely given their relative physical stature. Given the manner in which previous Banchou legends were created,Minami-ke Episode 07#Segment Four (Minami-ke Chapter 037) it seems more likely that Natsuki was defeated by her gender, as he is shown refusing to hit Hitomi when she dares him to. Hitomi, then, has been focusing attention on Natsuki since at least the third year of middle school. Just why she focuses such attention becomes quickly apparent.Minami-ke: Okaeri Episode 04#Segment Four and Five (Minami-ke Chapter 103 and Minami-ke Chapter 108), also Hitomi's only appearances so far. Hitomi clearly has a crush on him and seems to be continuously trying to get his attention, giving him an umbrella when he does not have one and trying to feed him from her own lunch. Hitomi believes herself an expert at reading the emotions in his seemingly expressionless eyes, but can be erroneous when determining where they are looking. When Natsuki glances at Haruka with what Hitomi thinks is a strong look of interest, she misinterprets it as being a look for her, and goes into brief hysterics. Hayami's drunken lust for Kana .]] Though Hayami displays some of the traits of a closet lesbian, even the fanbase was reluctant to speculate until a famous scene at the end of season one. In the scene, Hayami gets all the other girls drunk by claiming that the alcohol she has brought is "juice". Kana wisely eschews drinking any of it. However, by the end of the scene, Hayami is herself quite drunk and proposes to Kana that they go find somewhere to be together, strongly hinting towards Strange Things. Kana is unable to escape her embrace, fondling, and later kiss. The scene ends without revealing what happens. It is noteworthy that Hayami ignored Haruka, Chiaki, Atsuko, and Maki, all helplessly passed out, and made a move on Kana instead.Minami-ke Episode 13#Segment Four (Minami-ke Chapter 025) Hiroko's crush on Yuu Hiroko focuses a lot of attention on Yuu, and appears to get jealous in one scene when Yuu focuses attention on Kana to an unusual degree.This is somewhat vague evidence, and there is in fact a perfectly reasonable in-show explanation for this, but it is true according to Wikipedia and the chart at the top of the page. In the manga, Kana recoils more strongly at Yuu's behavior, implying a greater possibility of it being unusually affectionate. Likely Makoto's Crush on Chiaki While Makoto's most obvious (and stated) devotion is to Haruka, it seems very likely that Makoto harbors similar, unstated feelings for Chiaki. Much of the evidence is circumstantial. Makoto spends a great degree of time arguing with Chiaki, desperately making a concerted attempt to get into her good graces, for unclear reasons. Constantly rebuffed by her acerbic opinion of him, and under the mistaken impression that showing great energy and asserting his opinion will somehow help, he nonetheless continues trying, and obeys her punishing commands with dead earnestness.A good example of this arises as early as Minami-ke Episode 02#Segment Four (Minami-ke Chapter 005). Besides this, Makoto consistently shows a greater level of concern about and pays more attention to Chiaki than to any of the other girls in the show, more so even than to Haruka. Chiaki is, after all, a far more realistic prospect than Haruka ever would be. The best evidence comes from Minami-ke: Okaeri Episode 07. In Segment One, he shows great willingness to help Chiaki with her problem with the three-legged race, and in Segment Four, Chiaki seems to compliment him and call him cute, leaving great ambiguity as to whether she is actually talking about him or not. This affects him deeply, and he spends the last part of the segment alternately enthused and confused, to a degree for which it is difficult to ascribe any cause other than some sort of crush. Chiaki's Possible Interest in Makoto Any possible such attraction would have to be very well hidden, given Chiaki's outward policy of disliking and ignoring idiots. However, it is true that she tolerates him far better than she claims she would, and that she wouldn't be the first to use a policy of violence and verbal abusiveness on someone she is actually attracted to. In Minami-ke Episode 10, Makoto attempts to confess to her that Mako-chan is actually himself cross-dressing, but manages to word it in such a way that he appears to be on the verge of confessing love. Chiaki behaves uncharacteristically, blushing and eventually kicking him in the face. However, this scene is anime-original. All other evidence comes almost entirely from Minami-ke: Okaeri Episode 07. Not only does Chiaki express in Segment One her displeasure at her lack of athletic skill and the consequent lack of help she will be to Makoto in the coming sports festival, she works actively with Mako-chan to rectify this, and blushes strongly when he later grabs onto her. She also seems to call him cute in Segment Four, though the meaning of this depends entirely on how much she has pierced the veil of deception surrounding Mako-chan. Makoto at least is strongly affected by this. Pure Speculation Fictional Notes Category:Character Category:Minami-ke Character